Sir Mervyn King, presenting the Bank's latest Quarterly Inflation Report, said a recovery was "in sight", but added that the outlook for inflation had worsened since November.

He now expects the inflation rate, currently 2.7%, to rise to at least 3% by the summer and to remain above the Bank's 2% target for two years.

The Bank's last report in November said that inflation would fall back towards its 2% target in the second half of this year.

In the latest Business Daily podcast from the BBC World Service - the three lives of Ping Fu. Beginning life as an orphan, she became a Chinese political prisoner, then relaunched as a pioneer of the high-tech revolution. Today she is one of America's top business entrepreneurs and she tells us her story.